


Hear You Knocking At My Door

by celeste9



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Arguing, Character Death Fix, Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, First Kiss, Fix-It, M/M, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2020-12-06
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,446
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27917137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celeste9/pseuds/celeste9
Summary: Dean isn't going to say he doesn't appreciate Castiel swooping in to heal him but the anger? A little unnecessary. If anything, Dean figures it's him who has the right to be angry, considering Cas was just going to let him think he was trapped in the Empty forever.And if Sam makes one more true happiness joke, Dean will hit him in the face.
Relationships: Castiel & Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester, Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 16
Kudos: 248





	Hear You Knocking At My Door

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "All I Want" by Kodaline.

As the vamp bites it, Dean has a litany of _no, shit, fuck, no, damn it,_ running through his head. He’s afraid to move because he thinks his torso might break in half and all his insides will end up on the outside and this is just… this is just… fucking _perfect._

“Sam,” Dean chokes out, and he knows Sam doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get it but Dean knows; he knows he’s gonna die here with a fucking… whatever the hell this is in his back. He’s gonna die here.

He thinks he imagines the sound of wings. The angels can’t fly anymore and the only one who would have given a shit is gone. It must be some kind of hallucination brought on by blood loss. (Damn this hurts.)

A really realistic hallucination because that’s Cas, that’s Cas stalking towards him, looking like he did when he was in full-on wrath mode. Then Sam is saying, “Cas?” and that’s weird, why would they both be hallucinating? A shared hallucination? Is that a thing?

Cas yanks him forward and Dean yelps, “No,” because hallucination or not, this is bad, his guts are gonna be on the ground, but Cas is holding him and there’s warmth spreading out from his hand to Dean’s back, setting him on fire, it feels like. He can feel Cas’ grace flowing through him, knitting his body back together, and he can feel Cas’ strong grip. Cas smells like a rainstorm. Weird, but kinda nice.

So maybe he isn’t going to die. Or maybe this is just a very, very elaborate hallucination.

Cas looks at him grimly, Dean’s face still pushed against the front of his shoulder. His blue eyes are burning with fury. “You are not hallucinating, Dean, and you won’t die, no thanks to any effort on your part.”

“Hey,” Dean protests, and he’d try harder to sit up on his own if it didn’t feel so nice to lean against Cas. His body feels so solid and sturdy. Dean figures he almost died so he can have a minute. “It’s not like I tried to impale myself.”

“What?” Sam says, taking this all in with obvious confusion. “What the hell just happened?” He’s staring at the rebar now, if that’s what it was, which Dean knows must be dripping blood.

“Your brother,” Cas says, anger in every growled syllable, “would have died without my intervention. Luckily Jack and I were checking in.”

“Checking in?” Dean says, and okay, he’s had his minute. He pushes himself away from Cas, though he only makes it so far as to brace his hands on Cas’ chest while he closes his eyes from wooziness. He’s forgotten the headrush he gets from any kind of major angel healing. He stands all the way up, Cas following him like he’s ready to catch him but still with that bright rage shining in his eyes. “You were checking in? What the hell, man? We thought you were trapped in the Empty!”

“As you can see, that is no longer the case.”

“Yeah, I can see. Fuck, Cas. You let me think…”

“You would have died!” Cas shouts. “I gave my life for you and you threw it away on a bunch of vampires! A rusty piece of metal!”

“You’re not the one who gets to be angry here!” Dean shouts right back.

“Guys!” Sam interjects, firmly enough that they both turn to glare at him. He holds his hands up in front of himself, placating. “You know this is stupid, right? This is really stupid.”

“Shut up, Sam,” Dean and Cas both say, and then they return to staring daggers at each other.

“So you’ve been helping Jack, huh?” Dean says, a thrill of victory running up his spine at the way Castiel drops his gaze for a second and shifts his weight. “He pulled you out of the Empty, and you’ve been up in Heaven? Helping out?”

“That is essentially correct.”

“And it never occurred to you that maybe we might want to see you? That maybe we might like to know you’re okay? That you’re alive and kicking?”

Now Castiel looks incredibly uncomfortable. His gaze darts around the barn before settling somewhere at the level of Dean’s chest. “I thought perhaps you would not want to see me after what I told you.”

Dean swallows around his dry mouth. “Sorry, you what?”

“My confession. I thought you would be uncomfortable.”

“Dude, I could hit you right now, I--”

“Your what?” Sam asks, and crap. Crap. “Dean, what confession? Cas, what are you talking about?”

If Dean weren’t so pissed he might find the way Castiel’s ears are pinking kind of endearing. And thank fuck no one knows he just thought that. But Cas doesn’t say anything, and Dean sure as hell isn’t about to explain, so the building fills with awkward silence.

Finally Sam heaves a sigh, dramatic and long-suffering, like the bitch he is. “Guys. Do you want me to guess? Did you fight before Cas died? Did you--”

Cas interrupts him to say, in his best solemn deadpan, “For the Empty to take me I needed to experience a moment of true happiness.”

Sam blinks at him, and then at Dean. No one says anything. Sam keeps staring at them and shit, fuck, Dean can practically sense the gears in his big brain working it all out. Dean fidgets. Cas stands there impassively.

Sam’s cheeks color. “Oh my God. Do not tell me this is a Buffy thing. Did you fuck Cas to true happiness?”

“Dude!” Dean exclaims, his own face flooding with heat.

Cas snorts a little. “I understand the reference but no, not exactly.”

“Glad someone finds this funny,” Dean mutters.

“I merely expressed what was in my heart,” Cas elaborates, and Dean groans.

This is Hell. This must be Hell. He died and went to Hell, and Rowena’s devised new methods of torture.

Sam’s eyes are wide as saucers and he looks torn between surprise, confusion, and amusement. “Wait. Cas, you’re in love with Dean? You’re actually in love with Dean?”

“Quite honestly I didn’t think you would find it such a surprise.”

The gears are clearly at work again and Sam’s mouth twists. “I think you just called me dumb, or at least oblivious, but whatever. Yeah, I guess… I guess I can see how you might have…” He coughs. “So Angel had to have sex with Buffy to experience true happiness and all you needed was to tell Dean how you felt?”

This is the worst conversation Dean has ever been forced into and also he has the lamest angel ever in love with him. “Can we all just stop comparing me to Buffy? Okay, thanks.”

Sam looks like he’s trying not to laugh and Dean apparently also has the worst little brother in the world. He rubs the back of his head and looks at Dean, then at Cas. “So, like, this whole time?”

Cas glances at Dean and then away. “It’s… complicated.”

“Can we not?” Dean says, crossing his arms over his chest. He is so not ready to talk about this, and definitely not with Sam as part of the conversation.

Thankfully Cas doesn’t seem eager to elaborate and Sam doesn’t press the issue. The awkward silence returns.

“Now that you’re safe,” Cas says, slightly haltingly, “I think it’s time I return to Jack.”

“Whoa, whoa, hey,” Dean says, reaching out and grabbing Cas’ elbow as if that will stop him vanishing. “I don’t think so. You think you can just pop in here, save my ass, and then run away again? No. Not happening.”

“But--”

“Not. Happening.” Even Dean realizes the amount of intense eye contact that’s going on here is suspicious but he can’t look away.

Cas says, “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

“Maybe not, but I also don’t want you running away before I can kick your ass for running away in the first place!”

“Dean. I didn’t run away.”

“Close enough! And then you stayed away! You came back and you stayed away, when you knew… when you knew…” Dean wants to look somewhere else, anywhere else but at Cas’ blue, blue eyes, but he can’t seem to make himself do it.

The sound of Sam clearing his throat rings loud in the stillness. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna leave you guys to, to whatever the hell this is. Yeah? I’ll be outside.”

The pad of his booted footsteps echoes across the ground. Neither Dean nor Cas takes the opportunity afforded by the sudden alone time to say anything. Dean waits sullenly. The way he figures it, it’s Cas’ move.

Eventually Cas says, his voice low and quiet, “I was afraid you wouldn’t want to see me. Staying away was easier than finding out if I was right.”

“Cas,” Dean sighs. “You’re an idiot.”

“Am I?”

“You saved my life! And, yeah, I didn’t want you to, and you said some surprising shit, but you’re my best friend. What kind of guy do you think I am?” Dean wonders if his hurt is as obvious to Cas as it is to himself. “Of course I wanted to see you, to know you were okay. Losing you, it… it sucked. A lot.”

Dean turns away because this is veering way too close to the conversation he doesn’t want to have. He really doesn’t. His best friend is in love with him; what is he supposed to do with that? What is he meant to do with Cas’ faith in him, with Cas’ belief that he’s better than he thinks he is, or with the way it had felt to watch Cas get swallowed up by the Empty, with the overwhelming joy that so quickly turned to crushing disappointment at Lucifer’s twisted joke?

It’s too much. Dean feels like he’s being pulled every which way and he doesn’t know what’s up and what’s down anymore.

(Cas is _alive._ )

“I should have let you know I was okay,” Cas says.

“Damn right you should have.”

“And I’m sorry.”

Dean nods. “Seeing as you saved my life again, I think I can forgive you.”

“But I can’t change what I feel, or take back what I said, and I don’t want to. I can’t pretend it doesn’t change things between us, and you can’t, either.” Cas gazes into Dean’s eyes. “Dean. I never expected you to reciprocate. I don’t need anything from you, and I hope I still am your best friend. But we’re different now. I hope you can understand why I stayed away.”

There’s an itching, crawling feeling beneath Dean’s skin that he doesn’t like and that he can’t shake. “I can understand, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Thought you trusted me more than that.”

Cas’ mouth twists. “I’ve never confessed my love to anyone before. Guess you’ll have to forgive me for this, too, for being afraid of the consequences.”

“Hey,” Dean says, and knocks his knuckles against Cas’ shoulder. He thinks Cas needs to hear this. “You know at the end, when it came down to it? I remembered what you said. I heard it. That I’m… that I’m more than just a dude who kills things. Not sure I could’ve done it without you.” He offers Cas a little wry smile. “I mean, besides that I would’ve been dead without you, of course.”

“Of course,” Cas says, and his eyes are bright and warm.

Dean remembers praying to Cas in Purgatory, remembers how he’d said he should have asked Cas to stay.

He isn’t going to make the same mistake again.

“I don’t want you to stay away,” Dean admits. “Please don’t stay away.”

There’s a shine in Cas’ eyes like he might cry and damn, Dean does not want to see Cas cry anymore. He blinks and it clears. “I won’t. I promise.” Cas’ shoulders droop a little. “I… I hoped you’d pray to me,” he says in barely more than a whisper. “I would have heard you, and then I would have known…”

Saliva feels thick in Dean’s throat and he swallows, and swallows again. “Guess I was scared to. Because I knew you couldn’t answer me from the Empty. Felt like facing that you were gone and you weren’t coming back.”

“I always come back to you,” Cas is saying, and his face looks like it did back in that room in the bunker, so open and full of light, and how can he look at Dean like that? How can anyone look at Dean and feel all that?

“Okay,” Dean says, because he’s not sure what he can say. His face feels hot and he thinks he’s blushing. He hates how much this whole thing is turning him into a thirteen-year-old girl.

“I made you uncomfortable.”

“Well, yeah, Jesus, Cas.” At the look on Cas’ face, Dean tries to backtrack. “Oh, come on, not like that. You can’t use this as some kinda proof you were right not to come back. You’re just…” Dean waves his hand. “You’re you! You’re too damn intense sometimes. Give a guy a second.”

So then Cas is quiet, but he keeps watching Dean and even that is still too much so Dean walks across the barn, scratching at the back of his neck. He still feels slightly strange in his skin from the healing, and there’s blood on his clothes that’s going to dry and crust and be really gross.

Fuck, he almost _died._ On a fucking rusty nail or whatever the hell.

And Cas, Cas is _alive._ Cas is _here._ The guy’s died so many times Dean knows he shouldn’t actually be that surprised but this one had felt different, watching him get swallowed up, Chuck refusing to make a deal, and then when Jack hadn’t even tried… Dean had thought this was it. This was really the time Cas never came back. After all, how many times could one nerdy angel pull off miraculous resurrections?

But now here he is, and Dean doesn’t know what to do. Part of him wants to wrap him up in blankets and keep him safe or some shit, like Cas would ever let him. Part of him wants to shove him onto that nail and make him hurt, like Dean had hurt. Part of him wants to hold Cas and not let go. Part of him wants to hit Cas a few times, even if it’ll probably hurt Dean’s fist more than Cas’ face.

And part of him… part of him wonders a little bit what Cas’ lips feel like, how he tastes.

What. _Fuck._

Okay, the thing is… the thing is… Dean thought Cas was dead. He had some time to think. He had some time to think after Cas gave him that whole speech about how he was in love with him. Dean’s spent his life figuring he’s pretty straight. Like, having a tiny crush on a sexy male doctor on TV is totally different from actually wanting to bone a dude, right?

But Cas said _I love you_ and died for him, and Dean was less freaked out than he could have been. Not about the dying for him thing, obviously. That sucked. But the rest of it? All Dean had wanted was to see Cas’ dumb face again, to run up the stairs and fling the door open to see _Cas,_ not Lucifer, and tell him… and find out…

Dean loves Cas. That’s not really a secret. Cas is his best friend. Cas is family. But Dean’s not so sure he isn’t a little curious about the rest of it. He’s just been… trying not to think about it. Because what was the point? Cas was dead.

Only Cas isn’t dead anymore and Dean could find out right now how he feels, how he tastes. If he wanted.

It’s figuring out if he wants to that’s catching him up.

It’s funny. The way he’d felt, running up those stairs in the bunker after getting that call, if it actually had been Cas at the door, and if Cas had been a woman, Dean knows what he would have done. Shit, he probably would have done it years ago. But Cas isn’t a woman. He’s not really a guy, either, technically, but the wrapping is a guy so Dean figures that’s basically the same thing.

He knows Cas believes it’s hopeless. Dean could go with that. It’s a ready out. But Dean also knows that this is kind of his chance. Not just his chance to have a life that’s his own, but his chance for something good. Cas is _here,_ and Cas wants him, if Dean wants him back.

Shit. Love is confusing.

In the end, Dean just goes for it. Because that’s what he does, right? He sees a hot chick and he puts all his cards on the table. No pissing around analyzing it like a romance novel heroine. So what if it’s a hot guy-shaped angel this time? He looks like someone Dean wants, so Dean’s gonna fucking go for it. It’s been a decade. It’s gotta be time.

Cas doesn’t move when Dean walks back towards him, standing there still as a statue. He watches Dean with that same focused gaze, only now Dean wonders why he didn’t know. He wonders how long Cas has been looking at him like that, how long Dean has brushed it aside and not paid attention to what Cas’ eyes were saying.

There is stubble beneath Dean’s lips when he presses them to Cas’ jaw and it’s a little weird but not in a bad way. He can feel the hitch in Cas’ breath and the way he trembles.

“Dean,” Cas murmurs, and Dean kisses him again, off the corner of his mouth. Cas clutches his hips.

Dean kisses his mouth, catches him with his lips barely parted. Cas makes a tiny sound, so desperate, and Dean smiles against his mouth. The kiss is soft and undemanding and Dean has probably had better, technically speaking, but somehow it feels like the best kiss he’s ever had.

It's the one he’s wanted the most, and when he realizes that, a lot of things suddenly make sense.

Cas’ eyes are closed when Dean pulls back and he looks like he’s just had his mind blown. Dean chuckles to himself. There hadn’t even been any tongue.

Then Cas looks at him again, his blue, blue eyes open wide. He says, “Dean,” in that low, gravelly voice that somehow seems even lower, more raw. That voice does something to Dean.

He clears his throat. “I guess, uh.” He swallows and tries again, ruffling his hand through the hair on the back of his head. So maybe he really, really wants this, but he isn’t going to lie and say it isn’t the tiniest bit strange to know that he’s turned on by the sound of a man’s voice. One particular man. Man-shaped angel. Whatever. “You can have it?”

_Shit._ What the hell. What the hell even was that? Dean thinks he used to be cool. He used to be pretty smooth. He doesn’t know what happened.

But Cas’ lips are curving upwards and Dean would say an awful lot of crap to earn the way Cas smiles at him. “If I’d known, I would have asked the Empty to wait just a second.”

Dean barks out a laugh and clasps Cas behind his neck, rubbing his thumb over warm skin. “Yeah, well. Maybe now you’ll think twice about vanishing back to Heaven.”

Cas nods gravely. “I have thought more than twice and I will not be returning quite yet. Jack can manage without my help for a little while.”

“About Jack,” Dean says, as he leads Cas outside the barn to where his brother is waiting. Cas isn’t the only one who’s been hiding from them, it seems. Dean should have known the kid was full of shit when he acted all mysterious and knowing. Turns out he was just waiting to get his adopted dad back.

Sam is waiting by the car and his eyes track over Dean and Cas, taking in Dean’s arm where it’s casually around Cas’ shoulders, a smirk making its way into his face. “You two all good?”

There is a little whispering part of Dean that itches to smack that smirk off Sam’s annoying little brother face but he’s honestly too happy to be bothered. Instead Dean glances to Cas, who doesn’t quite smile, but it’s close. “Yeah, we’re all good.”

Feels pretty right, Dean thinks. Pretty fucking right.

**_End_ **


End file.
